The System: using Floorbooks to support inclusion

I watched him for about two weeks, walking up and down the perimeter of the yard. It didn’t concern me that he wasn’t ‘playing’ because I knew he had an intention. They (the system) thought it was because he wanted to get out. Although I didn’t know what he was doing, I wasn’t convinced that it was plotting escape.

In a place where you should only be limited by your imagination, you were limited in your imagination. The environment certainly didn’t give you much to work with! Concrete drains, steel fences as high as the eye could see and one measly plastic balance beam 2 inches off the ground.

He walked.

He continued to walk up and down the concrete drain-way and around the fence line for weeks and weeks. Then one day, he peered in the drain and put his ear to it. Going from looking to listening to looking again, he began to walk in a strange square-like figure eight around the ostensible outdoor space.

I watched. I wished I could give him more. More things to engage him. I thought we needed more things. In a place where you should only be limited by your imagination we needed more things right!? I cried louder for more things. In two weeks we got much more things for him and the other children to engage with.

He walked.

He continued to walk. And when ‘things’ were in his way, he moved them. He was frequently checking the drain with his eyes and ears, engrossed with it on a daily basis. I had to write this down. I wrote. I watched him and I recorded stories about his legs, his arms, his eyes, his ears and his brain. I showed it to the world of boxes and ticks and labels and names. Nothing made sense. He wasn’t interested in writing or even talking to me about what I had written in the boxes. The only people that were concerned with this writing was the system. How would he go to school if he couldn’t write!?

He continued to walk. But today, I walked with him. I didn’t wonder, I didn’t despair.

I walked.

I stopped writing and just walked. I did this for weeks and simultaneously decided to place a collection of shared writing in a floorbook in the ‘cool down’ area for children to re-visit and write about. We also decided to have a teacher there too, just in case anyone needed some help to write.

He stopped. He stopped walking. When no one was looking he went to book corner. To the book.

He wrote.

He made his mark. He showed me the way.

The way to the sea, you see. He was walking the drains, the underground plumbing. He made a map of the entire plumbing system underneath the ground. He walked to work it out, walking and listening and looking. Feeling and sensing the environment around him with much more than just his eyes.

This is a story about how Floorbooks enabled a group of educators to reach a child with Autism. The opportunity for this child to draw the plumbing system under the ground enabled them to communicate regularly. His ideas, thoughts, feelings and opinions were finally heard. We stopped writing about his legs, arms and brain and started to see his meaning on paper. Floorbooks are a window to the sense children make of the world. Everyone is heard when Floorbooks are the voice.

The book was left in the book corner right near his favourite cushion and when nothing made sense he would revisit his maps. He was also allowing other children to track his maps with their fingers and they talked about them with each other. This is how he shared ideas with peers, not exactly how the box wanted him to, but instead how he wanted to. Often we expect children to come up with some sort of drawing or representation of their learning after they learn it, or even to write their name. The pressure placed on them to ‘produce’ this can often impact on the ‘product’.

We as teachers also place pressure on ourselves to document what is not there. This story shows that if a climate of support and ease with no pressure is created children are more likely to share genuine representations of their thinking and we are more likely to want to write about it. Because let’s face it we do not all think the same and nor should we! The safety and security of a Floorbook allowed him to connect and communicate with us.

We knew that it wasn’t simply allowing him to draw in a communal book that allowed for this engagement. Floorbooks are so much more than that. Our role (the adult) was important: we needed to foster and facilitate the thinking and sharing as it occurred, but in a way that he and his peers would be motivated to participate. Some of his peers requested daily to go back to the maps and track them. They asked questions about plumbing and drainage systems and we tested it out using pipes and water. We also talked about the rain and catchment and how we conserve water. Each person had something to bring to the thinking as it evolved and sometimes we worried that his voice would get lost in the ‘projects’. We just kept bringing it back (using Talking Tubs as our refocus) and remembering why we started the journey in the first place. It was to look at the fascination of water systems in concrete jungle but it was also to resist a system that put him in a box.

More Information

One of the barriers to the successful inclusion of children with additional needs is that of ‘participation’. Children have ‘access’ to early childhood settings by welcoming the enrolment, including the child physically in to the setting with other children. Most of the time children are participating in the program in some form however a closer look at the quality and level of participation is crucial in order to be beneficial for all stakeholders. This means taking in to account how your documentation is offered and if it is accessible to children in the way they can offer their skills, knowledge and insight. By using Floorbooks as a way to map progress, not only teachers but children, families and community members can help to plan for high expectations resulting in good outcomes for the child.

Rebecca is an Early Childhood Consultant operating on the east coast of New South Wales, Australia. With 17 years experience and a Master of Inclusive Education, Rebecca supports her community in the successful inclusion of children with additional needs.

With many years spent focusing on building strategies around the child to fit in, Rebecca’s focus has turned to using environments (physical and interpersonal) as a consideration in supporting participation and enacting rights. This is where an automatic kinship with nature pedagogy propelled her in to combining the two: nature and inclusion. She strongly believes that the ownership, sense of self, mindfulness and multiple senses engaged that children experience when outdoors is the catalyst for social justice.